Recently, the development of technologies for generating tactile sensation delivered to users has been actively made in a variety of fields such as video conferences, remote control of a robot, virtual reality, smart phones, and games.
As conventional apparatuses for generating tactile sensation, VibeTonz by Immersion Corporation, Phantom-DRAWN by NTT, etc. have been introduced. An actuator used by VibeTonz, composed of an eccentric rotor and a motor, causes vibration by rotation of the eccentric rotor and Phantom-DRAWN generates a specific directional virtual force vector by using movement of a mass with asymmetric acceleration.
However, VibeTonz has a difficulty to generate a variety of patterns of vibration because the vibration of the VibeTonz does not have any directional nature. Further, Phantom-DRAWN has a difficulty to generate high-quality tactile sensation because it may cause the force of an unintended direction. In addition, conventional tactile sensation-generating apparatuses as shown above had difficulties in being light or compact because they must essentially include components such as a motor, a drive shaft, and an eccentric rotor, which have large volumes and higher mass, to generate tactile sensation, i.e., vibration or force.
For the reasons, the inventor came to reach the development of the apparatus for generating tactile sensation that allows a magnet itself to perform a function of an actuator of generating tactile sensation.